Historic Highways of America Volume III Part 6

1. It has not one-half the area Mr. Lewis gives it.

2. It would not include much more than one-half of the high ground of the plateau, which was none too large for a fort.

3. There is no semblance of a mound B C nor any shred of testimony nor any legend of its existence.

4. The mound B E is entirely ignored though there is the best of evidence that it stood in Mr. Lewis's day where it stands today and was considered an embankment of Fort Necessity. Mr. Lewis gives exactly the area of a triangle with it as a part of the base line.

5. Loop M S N would not come near the course of the brook without extending it far beyond Mr. Lewis's estimate of the length of its sides.

6. Its area is only about 5200 square feet which would make Fort Necessity unconscionably small in face of the fact that more high ground was available.

In 1759 Colonel Burd visited the site of Fort Necessity. This was only five years after it was built. He described its remains as circular in shape. If it was originally a triangle it is improbable that it could have appeared round five years later. If, however, it was originally an irregular square, it is not improbable that the rains and frosts of five winters, combined with the demolition of the fort by the French, would have given the mounds a circular appearance. Was Fort Necessity, then, built in the form of an irregular square? There is the best of evidence that it was.

In 1830--fourteen years after Mr. Lewis's "survey"--Mr. Jared Sparks, a careful historian and author of the standard work on Washington, visited Fort Necessity. According to him its remains occupied "an irregular square, the dimensions of which were about one hundred feet on each side."[16] Mr. Sparks drew a map of the embankments which is incorporated in his _Writings of Washington_ (see plate on page 175).

This drawing has not been reproduced in any later work, the authors of both _History of c.u.mberland_ and _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_ preferring to reproduce Mr. Lewis's inconsistent survey and speculation rather than Mr. Sparks's more accurate drawing.

It is plain that Mr. Sparks found the embankment B E running in the direction it does today and not at all in the direction of the line B C, as Mr. Lewis drew it. By giving the approximate length of the sides as one hundred feet, Mr. Sparks gives about the exact length of the line B E in whatever direction it is extended to the brook. The fact that such an exact scholar as Mr. Sparks does not mention a sign or tradition of an embankment at B C, only fourteen years after Mr. Lewis "surveyed"

it, is evidence that it never existed, which cannot come far from convicting the latter of a positive intention to speculate. However, it is well known how loosely early surveying was done.

Mr. Sparks gives us four sides for Fort Necessity. Three of these have been described as C A, A B and the broken line B E D. Is there any evidence of the fourth side such as indicated by the line C D?

There is!

When Mr. Fazenbaker first questioned the accuracy of the map of Fort Necessity in _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_, he believed the fort was a four-sided construction and pointed to a small mound, indicated at O, as the remains of the fourth embankment. The mound would not be noticed in a hasty view of the field, but, on examination proves to be an artificial, not a natural, mound. It is in lower ground and nearer the old course of the brook than the remains of Fort Necessity. A mound here would suffer most when the brook was out of banks, which would account for its disappearance.

Excavations in the other mounds had been unsuccessful; nothing had been discovered of the palisades, though every mound gave certain proof of having been artificially made. But excavations at mound O gave a different result. At about four and one-half feet below the surface of the ground, at the water line, a considerable amount of bark was found, fresh and red as new bark. It was water-soaked and the strings lay parallel with the mound above and were not found at a greater distance than two feet from its center. It was the rough bark of a tree's trunk--not the skin bark such as grows on roots. Large flakes, the size of a man's hand, could be removed from it. At a distance of ten feet away a second trench was sunk, in line with the mound but quite beyond its northwestern extremity. Bark was found here entirely similar in color, position, and condition. There is little doubt that the bark came from the logs of the palisades of Fort Necessity, though nothing is to be gained by exaggerating the possibility. Bark, here in the low ground, would last indefinitely, and water was reached under this mound sooner than at any other point. No wood was found. It is probable that the French threw down the palisades, but bark would naturally have been left in the ground. If wood had been left, it would not withstand decay so long as bark. Competent judges declare the bark to be that of oak. An authority of great reputation expresses the opinion that the bark found was probably from the logs of the palisades erected in 1754.

If anything is needed to prove that this slight mound O was an embankment of Fort Necessity, it is to be found in the result of Mr.

McCracken's survey. The mound lies in _exact line_ with the eastern extremity of embankment C A, the point C being located seven rods from the obtuse angle A, in line with the mound C A, which is broken by Mr.

Fazenbaker's lane. Also, the distance from C to D (in line with the mound O) measures ninety-nine feet and four inches--almost exactly Mr.

Sparks's estimate of one hundred feet. Thus Fort Necessity was in the shape of the figure represented by lines K C, C A, A B, and B E, and the projection of the palisades to the brook is represented by E D K, E H K, or L W K (line B E being prolonged to L). Mr. Sparks's drawing of the fort is thus proven approximately correct, although Mr. Veech boldly a.s.serts that it is "inaccurate"[17] (the quotation being copied in the _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_),[18] and despite the fact that two volumes treating of the fort, _History of c.u.mberland_, and _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_, refuse to give Mr. Sparks's map a place in their pages. It is of little practical moment what the form of the fort may have been, but it is all out of order that a palpably false description should be given by those who should be authorities, in preference to Mr.

Sparks's description which is easily proven to be approximately correct.

Relics from Fort Necessity are rare and valuable, for the reason that no other action save the one battle of Fort Necessity ever took place here.

The barrel of an old flint-lock musket, a few grape shot, a bullet mould and ladle, leaden and iron musket b.a.l.l.s, comprise the few silent memorials of the first battle in which Saxon blood was shed west of the Alleghany Mountains. The swivels, it is said, were taken to Kentucky to do brave duty there in redeeming the "dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground" to civilization.

On the one hundredth anniversary of the battle of Fort Necessity a corner-stone for a monument was laid, but that has been displaced and rifled by vandals. Will the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary pa.s.s without suitable action? Is not the site of the first battle of the American Revolution worthy of a monument?

CHAPTER VI

THE CHAIN OF FEDERAL UNION

It is probable that, as early as 1753, after his return from his mission to the French forts, George Washington first introduced the subject of uniting the East and West by means of public highways. If England was to hold the West she must have a pa.s.sageway to it.

The project involved very great expense and Governor Dinwiddie paid little heed to it. Had Virginia acted on the young Washington's suggestion, how much life and treasure would have been saved! Braddock could not but have been successful, and that would have made Forbes's expedition needless, and perhaps Bouquet's also.

As it was, Braddock's twelve-foot road was almost her only communication with the West. But Washington held to his boyhood dream of a highway over the mountains. As the years pa.s.sed, his plans matured gradually with the unparalleled growth of the West. Being a broad-minded Virginian of Virginians, he early conceived a picture of commercial grandeur, for the Old Dominion, the colony holding a golden West in fee. This was to be attained by building a highway over the mountains and connecting its eastern and western termini with navigable water-ways, natural or, if necessary, artificial. The building of the ca.n.a.ls upon which the commerce from and to both east and west was to be brought to the great portage highway across the Alleghanies was the important _coup_ of his plan, and to this he gave the best of his time and strength for many years.

When he first became a member of the House of Burgesses, in 1759, the subject of a highway connection between the East and the West was not formally introduced. But to the members Washington recommended the project as worthy of their consideration; he determined, before it should be formally brought before the legislature of the colony for definite action, to supply himself with all facts concerning the practicability of the undertaking, the expense of the construction and the advantages to accrue. His plan contemplated the improvement of the navigation of the Potomac from tide-water to Fort c.u.mberland at the mouth of Wills Creek, or, to the highest practical point of the Potomac, and the building of a highway across the mountains to the nearest navigable western rivers, Cheat, Youghiogheny, Monongahela, or Ohio.

The selection of the best route was of primary importance, and Washington during his tours in the West studied carefully this question.

Maps plotted by surveying parties were examined and materially aided in selecting the most advantageous communication. The colonies on the Potomac, Virginia and Maryland, would especially profit by the navigation of this river and the extension of the communication with the West. Certain of Washington's letters to friends residing in Virginia and Maryland with extracts of his journal, including descriptions of the West, were published in the colonial _Gazettes_. The project was received with curiosity and interest. When Washington made his western tour in 1774, he was surprised to find the change that had taken place in the valley of the Ohio. People, he affirmed, were immigrating "in shoals!".

Believing now the time had come, Washington brought his plan of a grand system of communication before the House of Burgesses at its session in 1774. It met with much opposition on the grounds of impracticability and expense. Accordingly, Washington was forced to depart from his original intention. He introduced and moved the adoption of a bill which empowered individuals to subscribe toward such an enterprise and construct a communication at their own expense. Even this met with opposition, and, to appease the delegates from central Virginia, it was found necessary to introduce an amendment to include the improvement of the navigation of the James river.

In its amended form, the bill would probably have pa.s.sed the House of Burgesses. A similar bill was brought before the a.s.sembly of Maryland, though with discouraging prospects. Jealousies regarding western trade already existed between the merchants of Baltimore and Georgetown, and efforts made in favor of the bill by one party were opposed by the other.

With matters in this doubtful condition, the Revolutionary War broke out and as commander-in-chief of the army, Washington was called to Cambridge. But he never forgot the dream of his youth and early manhood and at the close of the war, again took up the enterprise. The dream of the youth became the firm conviction of the man, and, next to his desire for the independence of his country, the chief ambition of his life.

For, now, the project was of national importance--to bind the East and the West with the iron bands of commercial intercourse and sympathy. A new nation had been born, but it was divided by mountains, which, to European eyes, seemed imperative boundaries of empire.

On the first day of September, 1784, Washington left his home for another western tour. His purpose in making a western tour at this time was, chiefly, to look after his land, but a secondary consideration was to make a critical study of the summit range which intervened between the headwaters of the Ohio and Potomac rivers.

Upon his return to Mt. Vernon he prepared an account of his investigations, setting forth his arguments in behalf of this momentous project. This report, together with a transcript of his journal, he forwarded to the governor of Virginia. These words were added to the report: "If you concur with me in the proposition I have suggested, and it is adopted by the legislature, it will signalize your administration as an important era in the history of this country."

A new, yet old, consideration made the building of a highway to the West of utmost moment at this time. Now, as England found, in 1763, the trade of the Central West was slipping away down the Mississippi into the hands of Spaniards, and Washington was antic.i.p.ating already a matter which was to prove a perplexing problem to the nation before it was solved. It is best treated in one of his letters to David Humphreys, written July 25th, 1785: "I may be singular in my ideas, but they are these: that, to open a door to, and make easy the way for, those settlers to the westward (who ought to advance regularly and compactly) before we make any stir about the navigation of the Mississippi, and before our settlements are far advanced towards that river, would be our true line of policy. It can, I think, be demonstrated that the produce of the western territory (if the navigations which are in hand succeed, of which I have no doubt), as low down the Ohio as the Great Kanawha, and I believe to the Falls, and between the ports above the lakes, may be brought either to the highest shipping port on the Potomac or James rivers at a less expense, with more ease, including the return, and in a much shorter time, than it can be carried to New Orleans, if the Spaniards, instead of restrictions, were to throw open their ports and invite our trade. But if the commerce of that country should embrace this channel, and connections be formed, experience has taught us, and there is a very recent proof with Great Britain, how next to impracticable it is to divert it; and, if that should be the case, the Atlantic States, especially as those to the westward, will in a great degree be filled with foreigners, will be no more to the present Union, except to excite perhaps very justly our fears, than the country of California is, which is still more to the westward, and belonging to another power."

To Henry Lee he wrote: "Open _all_ the communications which nature has afforded, between the Atlantic States and the western territory, and encourage the use of them to the utmost. In my judgment, it is a matter of very serious concern to the well-being of the former, to make it the interest of the latter to trade with them; without which the ties of consanguinity, which are weakening every day, will soon be no bond, and we shall be no more a few years hence, to the inhabitants of that country, than the British and Spaniards are at this day; not so much, indeed, because commercial connections, it is well known, lead to others, and united are difficult to be broken." This view of the dependence of the seaboard states on those of the Central West, held by Washington, is as interesting as it was novel.

The bill authorizing the formation of a company to open the navigation of the Potomac and James rivers pa.s.sed the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland. It is difficult for us to realize how ca.n.a.ls were viewed a century ago; how commercial prosperity seemed to depend upon their building. Already Washington, in fancy, had covered the West with a network of ca.n.a.ls. As early as 1784, he wrote to Governor Harrison urging a survey of the Ohio; he added: "Let the courses and distances be taken to the mouth of the Muskingum and up that river to the carrying place of the Cuyahoga; down the Cuyahoga to Lake Erie, and thence to Detroit. Let them do the same with Big Beaver Creek and with the Scioto.

In a word, let the waters east and west of the Ohio which invite our notice by their proximity, and by the ease with which land transportation may be had between them and the lakes on the one side, and the rivers Potomac and James on the other, be explored, accurately delineated, and a correct and connected map of the whole be presented to the public.... The object in my estimation is of vast commercial and political importance."

Washington's laborious method of securing necessary information concerning the West, and his earnestness in not omitting any phase of the project are exemplified in a letter to Richard Butler, newly appointed superintendent of Indian affairs, written in 1786: "As I am anxious to learn the nature of the navigation of Beaver Creek, the distance, and what kind of a portage there is between it and Cayahoga, or any other nearer navigable water of Lake Erie, and the nature of the navigation of the latter; and also the navigation of the Muskingum, the distance and sort of portage across to the navigable waters of Cayahoga or Sandusky, and the kind of navigation therein; you would do me an acceptable favor to convey them to me, with the computed distances from the River Ohio by each of these routes to the lake itself."

In a letter to Henry Lee Washington, again, he writes: "Till you get low down the Ohio, I conceive, that, considering the length of the voyage to New Orleans, the difficulty of the current, and the time necessary to perform it in, it would be the interest of the inhabitants to bring their produce to our ports; and sure I am there is no other tie by which they will long form a link in the chain of federal union."

Washington's eagerness to gain every possible item of information concerning methods of internal improvement is displayed in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: "I was very much gratified ... by the receipt of your letter ... for the satisfactory account of the ca.n.a.l of Languedoc. It gives me great pleasure to be made acquainted with the particulars of that stupendous work, though I do not expect to derive any but speculative advantages from it." To the Marquis of Chastellux he wrote: "I have lately made a tour through the Lakes George and Champlain as far as Crown Point, then returning to Schenectady, I proceeded up the Mohawk River to Fort Schuyler, crossed over the Wood Creek, which empties into the Oneida Lake, and affords the water communication with Ontario. I then traversed the country to the head of the eastern branch of the Susquehannah, and viewed the lake Otsego, and the portage between that lake and the Mohawk River at Canajoharie. Prompted by these actual observations, I could not help taking a more contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of the United States.... Would to G.o.d we may have wisdom enough to improve them! I shall not rest contented until I have explored the western country, and traversed those lines (or a great part of them) which have given bounds to a new empire."

To William Irvine, Washington wrote in 1788: "The letter with which you favored me ... inclosing a sketch of the waters near the line which separates your State from that of New York, came duly to hand.... The extensive inland navigation with which this country abounds and the easy communications which many of the rivers afford with the amazing territory to the west of us, will certainly be productive of infinite advantage to the Atlantic States.... For my part, I wish sincerely that every door to that country may be set wide open, that the commercial intercourse may be rendered as free and as easy as possible. This, in my judgment, is the best, if not the only cement that can bind those people to us for any length of time; and we shall, I think, be deficient in forethought and wisdom if we neglect the means to effect it.... If the Chautauqua Lake, at the head of Conew.a.n.go River, approximates Lake Erie as nearly as is laid down in the draft you sent me, it presents a very short portage indeed between the two, and an access to all those above the latter."

"I need not remark to you, sir," Washington writes to Harrison, in perhaps the most powerful appeal he ever made, "that the flanks and rear of the United States are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones too; nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to bind all parts of the Union together by indissoluble bonds, especially that part of it which lies immediately west of us, with the Middle States. For what ties, let me ask, should we have upon those people? How entirely unconnected with them shall we be, and what troubles may we not apprehend, if the Spaniards on their right, and Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling blocks in their way, as they now do, should hold out lures for their trade and alliance? What, when they get strength, which will be sooner than most people conceive (from the immigration of foreigners, who will have no particular predilection towards us, as well as from the removal of our own citizens), will be the consequence of their having formed close connections with both or either of those powers in a commercial way, it needs not, in my opinion, the gift of prophesy to foretell. The Western States (I speak now from my own observation) stand as it were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way. They have looked down the Mississippi until the Spaniards, very impolitically, I think, for themselves, throw difficulties in their way; and they looked that way for no other reason than because they could glide gently down the stream, without considering, perhaps, the difficulties of the voyage back again, and the time necessary to perform it in; and because they have no other means of coming to us but by long land transportations, and unimproved roads.

These causes have hitherto checked the industry of the present settlers; for except the demand for provisions, occasioned by the increase of population, and a little flour, which the necessities of the Spaniards compel them to buy, they have no incitements to labor. But smooth the road and make easy the way for them, and then see what an influx of articles will be poured upon us; how amazingly our exports will be increased by them, and how amply we shall be compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter to effect it.... It wants only a beginning.

The western inhabitants would do their part toward the execution. Weak as they are, they would meet us at least half way, rather than be driven into the arms of foreigners, or be dependent upon them."

The navigation of the Potomac was not easily secured and the Potomac Company relinquished its charter in 1823 when the Chesapeake and Ohio Ca.n.a.l Company was formed. Yet in only one generation after Washington's death the important features of his great plan of internal communications were realized. The Chesapeake and Ohio, Erie and Ohio ca.n.a.ls made the exact connections desired by Washington half a century before, and with the very results he prophesied. To crown all, within two years of Washington's death, the great highway across the mountains for which he had pleaded for many years was a.s.sured, and for the next half-century the first National Road in the United States fulfilled to the letter Washington's fondest dream of welding more firmly "the chain of federal union."

True to his declared conviction, that "the western inhabitants would do their part," the creation of the first state beyond the Ohio, was responsible for the building of this great road; and, also, true to Washington's conviction, the commissioners appointed by President Jefferson to determine the best course for the road, decided in favor of Washington's old roadway from Fort c.u.mberland through Great Meadows to the Monongahela and the Ohio, the course Washington always held to be the one practical route to the West and which he had had surveyed at his own expense.

For three score years Washington's and Braddock's roads answered all the imperative needs of modern travel, though the journey over it, at most seasons, was a rough experience. During the winter the road was practically impa.s.sable. Colonel Brodhead, commanding at Fort Pitt during the Revolutionary War, wrote Richard Peters: "The great Depth of Snow upon the Alleghany and Laurel Hills have prevented our getting every kind of Stores, nor do I expect to get any now until the latter End of April."

But with the growing importance of Pittsburg, the subject of roads received more and more attention. As early as 1769, a warrant was issued for the survey of the Manor of Pittsburg, which embraced 5,766 acres. In this warrant an allowance of six per cent was made for roads.[19] Six years later, or the first year of the Revolutionary War, court met at Pittsburg, and viewers were appointed to report on a large number of roads, in the construction of which all males between the ages of sixteen and forty-five, living within three miles of the road, were required to work under the supervision of the commissioners. One of these roads became, nearly half a century later, incorporated in the c.u.mberland Road.

The licensing of taverns by Youghiogheny county in 1778, and of ferries about the same time, indicate the opening and use of roads. Within ten years, the post from New York to Pittsburg was established over the treacherous mountain road. In 1794, the Pittsburg post-office was established, with mails from Philadelphia once in two weeks.[20]

Through all these years a stream of pioneers had been flowing westward, the current dividing at Fort c.u.mberland. Hundreds had wended their tedious way over Braddock's Road to the Youghiogheny and pa.s.sed down by water to Kentucky, but thousands had journeyed south over Boone's Wilderness Road, which had been blazed through c.u.mberland Gap in 1775.